Hero Heel

Minami Masaki is a rookie actor, who has just landed a gig as the superhero on a children's television show named "Transdimensional Warriors Airguard". He doesn't take the role seriously, and is constantly mocked by his co-star, Sawada Kazuomi, a former star from another show of the same ilk as "Airguard". Minami resents Sawada at first, but after he accidentally sees him kissing another man, he becomes increasingly confused and curious about his co-star.

Hero Heel (by Makoto Tateno, the creator of Yellow) is a story primarily about the world of showbiz and acting, and the dramas and relationships that happen in between the cast of the "Airguard" show. Minami, the main character, acts grumpy, whiny and self-righteous about his role, and Sawada finds him inexperienced and immature because of this. Their relationship is mainly based on dislike, until Minami realises Sawada is gay and sleeping with guys, at which point our hapless hero becomes seriously confused about his own orientation. By the end of the volume, Minami's declaring his undying love for Sawada. It's not the most original plot, nor is it the best way of writing it, but it isn't terrible.

The art is clean and pretty, though I'm not all that fond of how pointy-chinned the characters are, overall. That's just personal taste, however, and I can't really say a bad word against the art; I love Tateno's art. Being a fan of sentai shows, I especially loved the designs of their "Airguard" costumes. As for the sex scene, it's artfully done, and pretty much everything incriminating is invisible or artfully dodged around or covered by a limb.

The manga itself, like all DMP manga, is slightly larger in size than your average manga and comes with the pretty slip-cover. I like the bigger size of the manga; it makes it easier to read and see smaller details in the artwork. The publishing quality, as to be expected from DMP, is excellent. And I love slip-cover manga; it makes it seem more authentic, as that's how the majority of manga volumes are published in Japan.

Hero Heel is a decent read; it's not perfect by any means, but it's not terrible either. Minami got on my nerves a little, I'll admit, but as this is only the first volume I have no doubt that he'll grow as a character. The art was good, the translation was good, the concept was relatively interesting.

Although Hero Heel wasn't one of the best manga I've ever read, it's still decent, and I'll be picking up the second volume when it's released. Hero Heel has a lot of potential as a series and, fingers crossed, we'll hopefully see some more of that potential coming out in Volume Two.